Dash-cam advice please - I know nothing.

hdh74

So hubby has asked for a dash-cam for Christmas. We are a pair of old fogeys who know nothing about them, and are rubbish with anything techy.

He just doesn't want 'wires going all over the car' - so I'm guessing wireless then. He mainly wants it in case of an accident or any other incident he wants recorded - won't be doing anything fancy - can you even do anything fancy with them lol?

His car has got a built in satnav with bluetooth and a usb port thing in the armrest and that's about as much as I know.

Can anyone give me a starting point as to what I need to look for to compare some please? I have no idea what to stick in amazon or how much to spend.

Many thanks.

Neil_Jones

Wireless isn't going to happen because most dashcams don't have a long battery life so they will run out of juice fairly quickly and so they will require a constant power source - cigarette lighter typically. In most cars you can hide the cables either down the side of the windscreen behind the fabric or you can run the cable down behind the hood, best solution depends on where the cigarette lighter is located.

Also you'd need the biggest SD card the camera can hold, typically 32Gb as in HD that will hold a couple of hours footage easily.

Night vision is a red herring, because all you'd see is the reflection of the night light LEDs in the windscreen, it won't actually illuminate anything beyond the windscreen, as counter intuitive as that sounds - that's what the car lights are for.

Price wise, Lidl were doing them a while ago for £35, that's a budget range so work with that sort of figure, though they have suddenly all dropped in price considerably for some reason so now is the best time to get one while they're cheap.

Nelski

I had mine wired in at Halfords ...not a wire in sight:)

hollie.weimeraner

Dash Cams need a power source and I'm not sure if there are any with re chargeable batteries. IMHO you're better off looking at the quality of the footage. I have a Nextbase camera in both my cars and have run the wires behind the roof lining and down the door pillars. I plug mine into the lighter sockets but you could always get them hard wired by an auto electrician. Try looking at Auto Express dash cam reviews or Which.

flashg67

I have a Nextbase, a popular brand which has proved reliable and fairly easy to use - have a look at their range at https://www.nextbase.com/en-gb/dash-cams/. I've hidden the wire along the trim in the car and is only visible at the lighter socket. You can also get a wiring kit that uses the fuse box and is even neater - not as scary to fit as it might sound.

Mine only works to the front and works well at night . There are fancier options like cameras that also cover the rear and can work when parked up - the sky's the limit really, but for a decent straightforward one, I can recommend my nextbase 512gw which is about £120.

cajef

I would second a Nextbase, I bought mine from Halfords when they had an offer on, they wanted £30 to hard wire it into the car fusebox, I bought a genuine Nextbase hardwire kit on ebay for £9 and wired it to a switched fuse under the dashboard myself, easy to do and took about two hours, only cable that can be seen is just where it plugs into the camera.

neilmcl

What car is it and do you know where the 12v sockets are located?

For example if it was, say a BMW then there may be a spare 12v socket under the glove compartment so a wired dash cam could easily be installed without any wiring showing.

hdh74

neilmcl wrote: »

What car is it and do you know where the 12v sockets are located?

For example if it was, say a BMW then there may be a spare 12v socket under the glove compartment so a wired dash cam could easily be installed without any wiring showing.

It's a Merc and no idea...

hdh74

Thanks all, that's given me some stuff to look into further

hdh74

Ah just been to look on Halfords and I can buy a voucher for getting it fitted for £30. With our joint car and technie knowledge being zero me thinks that would be a good idea.

mchale

Have a look at the "drive pro 100"